Oct 16, 2007

Impervious to reason…

When it comes to matters of faith, I am. Even if Darwinists found every missing branch in the human evolutionary tree, I would still believe evolution from bacterium to Beethoven was the work of God. I believe God used Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and then gave him the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. If an empty arc were discovered, I'd still believe it. I believe Jesus was God incarnate, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven. If archaeologists found a tomb containing what they believed were the bones of Jesus, I would adamantly believe they were wrong.

But, none of my religious beliefs is damaging to others in my life or to society at large. To the contrary, strong arguments can be made that these widely shared religious beliefs are not just beneficial to me and my society, but essential for a virtuous and purposeful human existence. If only the same could be said of the irrational Left.

Think of all the irrational beliefs the Left holds:

Men and women are essentially the same;Secularism is vital for sustainable civil society;Socialism is a better system than capitalism;Women are happier in pursuit of meaningful careers;Higher tax rates lead to higher revenues;Earth is destined for catastrophic man-made climate change;Peace is the dividend paid out for unending diplomacy;Universal health coverage means better health care.

I know the list could go on and on. The point is – everything listed above is disprovable by facts, knowledge of history or common sense.

If you are either a man or woman (and hopefully you are), the first Leftist belief on my list is disproved by life experience. It also happens to be disproved by science of the brain.

Secularism has been the well-spring of the vilest totalitarianism of the 20th century (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Gulag, Red China, Korea, etc…). True, the greatest threat to civilization in the 21st century is Islamofacism, but this doesn't disprove the history of the 20th century. And the Left doesn't even believe Isamofacism is an existential threat to civilization.

Socialism is crumbling everywhere it has been tried (even Sweden is lowering its tax rates and reducing welfare benefits). The French and Germans are moving to the right politically in an attempt to undo the damage socialism has done to the fabric of their societies.

My personal experience tells me women are happier in pursuit of meaning (not necessarily a meaningful career). The fact that women are depressed at roughly twice the rate of men, despite all their liberation, indicates women have been sold a lie by feminism.

The correlation between CO2 levels and increases in temperature does not indicate causation. From the data, it is unclear whether CO2 rise causes temperature rise, or the reverse. Something is amiss in the global warming models; the hysterical Left has predicted an ice age as recently as the 1970s (see Newsweek). Kyoto and other Gorian attempts to change the weather will destroy the prosperity of the world and do nothing for the health of the planet.

Unending diplomacy has lead to war time and again (think Chamberlain and WWII, even the Iraq war and especially Israel). Peace is the dividend paid to the victors of war – or if the opponent happens to be a Judeo-Christian nation with a free-press – it is paid to the righteous of a peaceful resistance campaign (think India over Britain).

The British are now pulling their own teeth and the Canadians regularly fly south to get timely health care. Not to mention the rate of cancer survival is by far the best in the United States and Britain has a rate comparable to Poland, despite spending three times as much money. Medicine socialized, people die (to the rhythm of "Bush lied, people died", which is itself a lie).

So, we appear to be a species in need of irrational beliefs. You get to choose – the benign and even beneficial irrationality of Judeo-Christian beliefs – or the truly harmful and even deadly irrationality of the Left.

2 comments:

Beautifully done, Western Chauvinist. Wonderful links backing up your argument. I particularly like this comment on your totalitarian link:While secular values and movements proclaim that they are based on reason, careful inspection discovers myth at their foundation, because the postmodernism and relativism that provides their basic orientation denies that reason can provide any absolute foundation for their beliefs.

Tell you what - if you haven't listened to Book TV's 'In Depth' with David Horowitz - you reaaallly should. The above is exactly what he says about secularism - though he himself is a self-described agnostic, he says that Hitchens/Dawkins/Harris - are simply expressing their own religious zeal as they bash away at faith.

Thanks Cathy. Yes - Horowitz describes what I saw in the debate between Hitchens and D'Souza. Simply, Hitchens argument that Christianity sets up the dynamic that allows people to follow Hitler and Stalin and other fascists just doesn't ring true. It sounds like leftist dogma - "we are essentially good and morally evolved, therefore the fascists on our side of the argument must have come out of religion." What a load of crap! Hitchens has a great mind - but on religion he sounds completely irrational. Thanks for the comment.